


Late Night Admissions

by DeweyDecimatrix



Category: Teen Titans (Animated Series)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-14
Updated: 2019-05-14
Packaged: 2020-03-05 14:33:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18830611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeweyDecimatrix/pseuds/DeweyDecimatrix
Summary: A phone call wakes Robin from his bed late at night. On the other end is Raven, looking to get something off her chest.





	Late Night Admissions

He had always loved the way his name sounded on her lips. He had not heard her voice in months, but now that he did, it took his breath away. Her light breath and lilting voice touched his ears with a hint of trepidation. He looked behind him, checking that the beautiful red head in his bed still slept. Her chest rose and fell steadily in sleep, innocence plain on her resting face.

He stood up as quietly as he could, trying not to move the bed as he left the room. He sat at the kitchen table and took a deep breath in before he placed the phone back against his ear. She was still there; he could still hear her soft breathing on the other end of the line. “Raven,” he said softly into the phone. He heard her breath hitch. “Raven, what is it? Is everything ok?”

She hadn’t contacted him in months, not since… he paused his thoughts there, he couldn’t be sure that was why she hadn’t wanted to talk to him. Maybe she had been busy, her own life filled with crime fighting as it was, and saving the world on the side. “Yes,” she replied quietly. “Everything is fine. I just…” He could hear the hesitation, as though she was willing herself to continue. “It’s been a while.”

He nodded dumbly on his end of the phone before realizing, obviously, that she could not hear him nod through the phone. “It has…” He ran a hand though his already messy hair, letting it spike in all different directions. It had never been so awkward between them before. They shared a special bond, he had saved her and she had saved him. Why was it so hard to keep this conversation going? What was happening to them? Did she know what he had never told her? “It’s two in the morning, Rae. What’s going on?” He had never stopped thinking about her, even when she thought he did. His eyes drifted to Kori, but he immediately looked away.

She took a deep breath, which had him holding the phone pressed hard to his ear, waiting to hear what she was going to say. “I-I,” she stuttered. The way she paused, he knew she was chewing her lip. He knew all her nervous ticks, every small detail. She let out a breath that he knew she had been holding. “I never told you something I should have. And now it’s too late,” she finally said. Her tone wasn’t rushed, but he could still hear her worry in every syllable. It sounded almost like she was scared to talk to him.

He looked over his shoulder, making sure that he was still alone. “What should you have told me? You know you can tell me anything,” he replied. He almost regretted the words. He could feel the tension over the line, and the thought that what she might tell him would ruin this tenuous position he was in made him nervous.

“Richard, I-” Her voice dropped off for a moment. His breath hitched again. Even when she had first spoke, she had called him Robin not Richard. He couldn’t remember the last time his real name had graced her lips, but he wished he could see her, be there with her as they spoke. See the way her pale skin reddened whenever she was embarrassed or the way she chewed her lip when she didn’t know how to respond to something. He wanted to hold her, remind her that she was his best friend and that he cared deeply for her. He wanted all that and more, so much more. More than he should. He wanted to touch her, to feel her silky skin beneath his fingertips. He desired to kiss her soft lips, feel her against him, and never let go. Not that he had ever told her any of this.

“I can’t keep it a secret anymore, Richard,” she began again. “I’m… I’m in love with you.”

Richard’s breath hitched. It was what he had always wanted to hear. It was what he felt towards her as well. His left thumb immediately went to the golden band that resided on his ring finger. This was why she hadn’t gone to the wedding. She knew. She knew how she felt all this time, and she hadn’t told him. Not that he could judge, he had married Kori without telling Raven. He had harbored his feelings for so long, knowing nothing could happen. He had already been dating Kori when his feelings for Raven had grown to love. By then, he was already too used to being with Kori. Everyone wanted him to be with her, and so he was. However, that did not keep him from desiring the goth that had resided just down the hall for so long.

“I know this isn’t what you want to hear, and I know that the timing is awful. You’re married, and this isn’t fair. I-I shouldn’t have called,” she rambled. “I should just-”

“Raven, stop,” Richard interrupted. The other end of the line was quickly silent. Again, he looked at his wedding band, remembering the promise he made. To love and protect, cherish and treasure, and realized that he had said it to the wrong woman. “I love you too.”

Silence carried over the line. Seconds seemed to stretch into eternity between the two, both birds having stepped into unknown and dangerous territory. “I love you, Raven,” he said again, unable to bear the silence between them anymore.

“You’re married, Richard,” she shot back. He thought he heard a catch in her voice as though she were crying.

“I know,” he replied. He let out a long sigh. “I know, Rae. But I made a mistake… I should have told you so long ago. I fell into a pattern, and things felt like they were expected of me, so I did those things... She’s great, but she’s not you.”

“I-I’m sorry I called,” Raven said. “I shouldn’t have done this to you. I shouldn’t have put you in this position.” With that, the line cut out and she was gone.

Richard sat in stunned silence. He pulled his phone away from his ear and stared at it for a while. He couldn’t believe what he had just said. He had admitted to loving a woman that was not his wife. He wasn’t sure what the worst part of it was, that he had known before they had said I do or that he now was having questions as to whether or not he still wanted to be married.

Kori made a sound, though Robin wasn’t sure if it was minutes or hours he had been staring at the phone in his hand. He was torn apart, completely confused, but his attention was held by the beautiful alien he had chosen. She was beautiful and loved him with her whole heart, but he couldn’t help the thoughts of Raven that assaulted his mind.

He pressed his phone to his lips, contemplating the changes his life had just gone through. He wished that this had happened before his marriage ceremony, but he also didn’t know what to do now that he knew. His gaze fell again on his wife. His heart melted at her sweet, innocent form that lay on their bed. Her entire personality was the exact opposite of the woman with whom he had just spoken.

* * * * *

Raven breathed deeply. Her heart wouldn’t stop hammering against her ribcage. She couldn’t believe what she had just done. She had admitted to her friend, her married friend that she was in love with him. That she had been in love with him for years. She couldn’t believe herself. Her eyes drifted to the whiskey bottle that stood, taunting her, on the coffee table that was almost half empty. It had been full at the beginning of the evening. And now she knew what a mistake she had made.

She rubbed her eyes roughly with her shaking hands. She thought over the night about herself, Richard, Kori…

Kori.

How could she do this to Kori. She had never been anything but nice to Raven, and yet Raven had just told the husband of that good friend that she was in love with him and had been for as long as she had known him.

Tears began pouring from the empath’s eyes, her heart aching with regret. She made her way slowly towards bed, stumbling slightly on her way there, and curled into her sheets. She pulled them up to her chin, hiding away as much as she could. She let the tears that marred her face remain, knowing how she would look in the morning.

* * * * *

Two weeks had passed since the call, and Raven still remained in a haze as she went through the motions of patrols and evenings alone in her small studio apartment. She had managed to avoid seeing Robin around the city, though it took considerable effort if her former teammates were to be believed. Apparently he had been asking about her ever since that night, though Kori didn’t say anything to her about what had happened, so maybe he hadn’t told her.

Raven entered her apartment after a particularly annoying patrol, in which she had been blindsided and thrown into a building. The fight had given her a chance to work out her anger, mostly aimed at herself, and got her to stretch some muscles she hadn’t used in a while, but it had still worn her out. She pulled off her cape as she walked through her apartment and into her closet, rummaging for softer yoga pants and a tank top to sleep in. When she reemerged from the small closet, Robin stood in her room, leaning lazily against the wall. He wasn’t Robin anymore, though, he was Nightwing. “Richard,” she breathed in surprise.

“Raven,” he said in an easy tone, as though they had not already blown up both of their lives. He pushed himself from the wall and walked towards her, keeping a safe distance as though he didn’t trust himself to be too close. “I think we need to talk.”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” she replied gruffly, sidestepping him to go into the small kitchen. She needed a drink, specifically calming tea. She had dumped all of the alcohol she had in her apartment in the past two weeks. She filled the kettle and set it on the burner, hoping that in the time she did this, Richard would make his exit. She didn’t want to face him or any of this.

“I think we both know that’s not true.” His voice was closer than she expected. He had taken a seat close by at the small island in her kitchenette. “I think we’ve needed to talk for a long time, and we’ve both avoided it for long enough.”

The kettle whistled. Raven poured herself a mug of herbal tea. She had thought to offer Richard something, but then decided against it. Common rules of hostess etiquette were not required if the person had just broken into the residence. She turned and leaned against the island, standing across from where the man sat, tea steaming from the mug rested in her pale hands. “If you want to talk, talk. But it’s not going to change anything, Richard. Need I remind you, you are married. I love Kori and I’m not getting in the way of your marriage. Even if that means we can’t be around each other.”

Richard gave a heavy sigh. He ran a hand through his hair, as he did whenever he was nervous. “I don’t know if I can stop loving you,” he told her, his eyes intensely fixed on hers from behind his domino mask. Raven averted her eyes to her mug.

“You have to, or I have to leave.”

“Why?”

“Because!” Her anger flared, black tendrils sprouting from her for just long enough to shatter the overhead light above her, glass raining down on her kitchen floor, her eyes flashing red for a moment before reverting to their usual deep purple. She took a deep breath, her hands shaking around the quickly cooling mug. “Because I can’t do that. Not to any of us.” She abandoned the mug of tea. Levitating a few inches off the glass littered floor, she moved around the island to come face to face with the man she was deeply in love with. “I’m going to leave Jump City. Don’t follow me, don’t ask where I’ve gone. Work things out with Kori.” She put a gentle hand on his shoulder, willing herself not to give in to the love she felt for him. “I love you enough to know that I’m not good for you. If you love me at all, let me go.”

Richard’s heart sank. He opened his mouth to speak, but the look Raven gave him told him there was no room for argument. “Goodbye Raven,” he said, with a sinking feeling that it was the last time he would say it.

“Goodbye Richard.”

Raven watched as he moved to her window, taking just a moment to look back at her, before he leapt out of the window and out of her life. Raven felt sadness overcome her, sinking into a chair and letting her tears fall.


End file.
